Seeing the Whole Board
by scullyseviltwin
Summary: A walk along the mall at night puts all of the pieces into perspective for Sam. Post Hartsfield's Landing.


Title: Seeing the Whole Board  
  
Authors: Danibannani and ScullyAsTrinity  
  
Category: Drama, post-ep, romance  
  
Spoilers: Post Hartsfield's Landing  
  
Summary: A walk along the mall at night puts all of the pieces into perspective for Sam.  
  
Notes: Dani rocks. I think this was her first fic and she really wanted it to be Ainsley/Sam, so if you could R&R that would be spectacular!  
  
[Seeing the Whole Board]  
  
The night had just begun, really. Silent moon rising up over the reflecting pool, the last tourists trying to see Lincoln in the dark, and small garbage can fires slowly popping up throughout the mall. It was September, the chill just starting to decsend, like sitting in front of a fan, the cool breeze broke through the muggy air of August. Sam doesn't notice the sweat on his hand as it grips his date's. Ainsley, a smart girl, a fast girl, the only girl that could ever really kick his ass. And he loved it, dreamed it, wanted it to take them straight to bed with handcuffs, and rope and...  
  
"Sam, what are you smiling about? Because it seems to me that you've checked out of this planet about 15 minutes ago, and have continued to stare, rudely might I add, at that man down there, and I was just thinking that if you're bored with me I could use a snack or something, maybe a pretzel, there's a pretzel vender over there and it looks like he may pack up..."  
  
"Shut up," he pulled her into his arms, covering her mouth with both his hands.  
  
"Okay, okay," she said while pulling back, giggling into her oversized sweatshirt. "So, I was starting to think, shocking for a blonde, I know, but it does happen, quite often in fact, for me anyway, and while I was thinking I realized that I don't really know you, I mean I know you, but not as well as I should know so...what's with the chess set, in your apartment? I didn't think you played chess, or anything requiring much intellect, but there it was in your apartment..." He laughed at her rambling and held up a hand to halt her.  
  
"Bout a month ago the president gave it to me, you know when he came back from India. It's a crazy story actually, we played, and he's much better than me and we got to talking. About seeing the whole board...My life just screeched to a halt for a fraction of a second. It was that feeling you get when someone drops a huge bomb on you, and you have no idea how to react. I was seated in my office engaged in an intense, albeit fragmented, chess match with the President. The outcome of the game was clear the second he asked me to play. He would slaughter me, and I told him so. But that's where the President is different, he knows that you can learn as much from the process of losing as you can from winning, more even.  
  
"He is a man who is able to see the whole board, strategize ten steps down the line. Once the initial move is completed, his is able to look at the next move objectively. He can connect how the first choice initiated the next and so on. It's astonishing that he can look back at his political career and see every breath, every words, as a step towards where he is now. He wanted to teach me to see the board, know the board and all its players, permutations. I didn't think I can, but then he said something to me, something amazing, perfectly worded as if I had written it, or Toby, he just looked up at me and said this thing, this amazing, wonderful, albeit mostly unfounded thing. It changed me. So much in fact, that now I play chess every night, try to see the whole board, learn to be like him, to be able to look down at the seal in the center of his carpet and connect his high school history paper on the Hundred's Year War, in some way with the decision that he was forced to make with Taiwan. It's all connected, every move he makes, every move I make-- it's all connected. Everything has meaning. Cause...consequence."  
  
"What, what was it that he said, Sam?"  
  
"That I'm going to be the President of the United States and I felt just like on a sunny day in Manhattan five years ago..." Sam pauses briefly and looks up over the brightly lit monument. "Because I believe him."  
  
"You know you're going to need a first lady, and wouldn't it help a campaign to have a Republican, I mean, a good natured, family valued Southern girl?" He gave her a little punch on the shoulder and she erupted into giggles. 


End file.
